31 October 2014

Summer's End

October 2014 has been very mild in south-east England and the bees have been making the best of the sunshine to bring home stores of nectar and pollen from the ivy and himalayan balsam..

Bees at the end of the Summer


Today, at what is traditionally "Summer's End", popularly known as Halloween, the Met Office has declared it the warmest 31st October ever recorded in the UK. A temperature of 23.5C (74.3F) was recorded at Gravesend, Kent, surpassing the previous record of 20.0C I took this short video of some of my bees earlier this week and as you can see they are still very busy. But, winter is just around the corner so the mouse guards are on to help the bees keep out those unwelcome visitors! As the saying goes, "in summer, remember winter".